This meat will not keep long after it is killed. The large vein in the
neck is bluish in colour when the fore quarter is fresh, green when it
is becoming stale. In the hind quarter, if not recently killed, the
fat of the kidney will have a slight smell, and the knuckle will have
lost its firmness.


16. Pork.

When good, the rind is thin, smooth, and cool to the touch; when
changing, from being too long killed, it becomes flaccid and clammy.
Enlarged glands, called kernels, in the fat, are marks of an ill-fed
or diseased pig.


17. Bacon

should have a thin rind, and the fat should be firm, and tinged red by
the curing; the flesh should be of a clear red, without intermixture
of yellow, and it should firmly adhere to the bone. To judge the state
of a ham, plunge a knife into it to the bone; on drawing it back, if
particles of meat adhere to it, or if the smell is disagreeable, the
curing has not been effectual, and the ham is not good; it should, in
such a state, be immediately cooked. In buying a ham, a short thick
one is to be preferred to one long and thin. Of English hams,
Yorkshire, Westmoreland, and Hampshire are most esteemed; of foreign,
the Westphalian. The bacon and "sugar cured" hams now imported in
large quantities from Canada and the United States are both cheap and
good.